Coming of the Europeans

The next arrival of overwhelming political
importance was that of the Europeans. The great
seafarers of north-west Europe, the British,
French, Dutch and Portuguese, arrived early in
the seventeenth century and established trading
outposts along the coasts. The spices of Malabar
(in Kerala) had attracted the Portuguese as early
as the end of the 15th century when, in 1498,
Vasco da Gama had landed at Calicut, sailing via
the Cape of Good Hope. Early in the 16th Century,
the Portuguese had already established their
colony in Goa; but their territorial and
commercial hold in India remained rather limited.
During the late 16th and 17th century they
remained unrivalled as pirates on the high seas;
but inland the other European companies were
making their presence felt, though entirely in
commercial terms.

The Years of 'The
Raj'

The newcomers soon developed rivalries among
themselves and allied with local rulers to
consolidate their positions against each other
militarily. In time they developed territorial
and political ambitions of their own and
manipulated local rivalries and enmities to their
own advantage. The ultimate victors were the
British, who established political supremacy over
eastern India after the Battle of Plassey in
1757. They gradually extended their rule over the
entire subcontinent, either by direct annexation,
or by exercising suzerainty over local rajas and
nawabs.

Unlike all former
rulers, the British did not settle in India to
form a new local empire. The English East India
Company continued its commercial activities and
India became 'the Jewel in the Crown' of the
British empire, giving an enormous boost to the
nascent Industrial Revolution by providing cheap
raw materials, capital and a large captive market
for British industry. The land was reorganised
under the harsh Zamindari system to
facilitate the collection of taxes to enrich
British coffers. In certain areas farmers were
forced to switch from subsistence farming to
commercial crops such as indigo, jute, coffee and
tea. This resulted in several famines of
unprecedented scale.

In the first half of the 19th century, the
British extended their hold over many Indian
territories. A large part of the subcontinent was
brought under the Company's direct
administration; in some parts local rulers were
retained as subsidiaries of the Company,
militarily and administratively completely at its
mercy and yilelding to it an overwhelming portion
of the revenues. By 1857, "the British
empire in India had become the British empire of
India." The means employed to achieve this
were unrestrained and no scruple was allowed to
interfere with the imperial ambition.